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Monthly Archives: May 2015

The Puhoi to Warkworth Highway looks to be the second ‘road of national significance’ to be developed under a public private partnership (PPP) structure. Private companies will be invited to submit proposals for financing, designing and building the road. In doing so, Transport Minister Simon Bridges hopes to save up to $1 billion. This follows…

On Friday we blogged about development opportunities under the recently announced 2015 budget. The Government’s plans to make several hundred hectares of Crown-owned land in Auckland available for development has proved to be a hot button issue – the Labour Party has come out swinging, stating that the Government has not done its homework and only…

Liquidated damages (‘LD’) provisions provide a useful risk management tool for contractors and principals, and are widely used within construction contracts. Specifying the damages that will result from a breach gives certainty, and allows risk to be better priced into contracts. However, a LD provision will be unenforceable if it in effect imposes a penalty…

Considering that PricewaterhouseCoopers has stated that Auckland’s overinflated housing market is currently ‘the most toxic risk to the economy’, it is hardly surprising that yesterday’s Budget addressed housing supply in Auckland. Of particular interest, some 420 hectares of vacant Crown-owned land is to be made available for development. The Budget allocates $52 million to facilitate…

A recent High Court decision (Bussell Construction Limited v Manchester Industrial Holdings Limited [2015] NZHC 858), highlights yet another ingredient for a valid payment claim. It was found in this case that for a payment claim to be valid, it needs to specify ‘particular construction work’, which requires ‘some description’ of the work for which…

On 19 May 2015, the Contractor Magazine published this article outlining a contractor’s struggle to receive payment from its developer principal. That struggle included disputes in the High Court, in the Court of Appeal and in arbitration. The ultimate outcome was that the contractor recovered only a fraction of the debt owed to it. The article, which was edited…

Today’s blog post is written by Kensington Swan construction partner Mary Haggie: Those of us women who work in the construction sector know that it’s largely a man’s world. The traditional construction jobs such as builder, plumber, electrician, have always been a career path for lots of men and few women. However, just like every…

In last week’s blog we discussed the proposed changes to the earthquake strengthening timeframes, and how landlords in low risk areas would continue to face commercial pressures to strengthen their buildings, despite increased timeframes for doing so. Today we focus on the implications for owners, landlords and tenants in high risk areas such as Wellington,…

A recent decision by the Building Practitioners Board has found that builder Mr Militch had performed negligent and/or incompetent work; carried out or supervised work that did not comply with a building consent; and failed to provide a record of work on completion of restricted building work. The result of the Board’s decision is that…

Yesterday the Reserve Bank issued its May Financial Stability Report. The report identified three systemic risks facing the New Zealand financial system. The Reserve Bank also announced changes to the loan-to-value ratio (LVR) policy in response to the growing housing market in Auckland. The proposed changes have received significant media coverage but what do they…